SINGAPORE's Changi Airport plans to develop an automated terminal that will deploy bots that will get to work from the minute an aircraft lands to serve passengers through to the baggage collection point
SINGAPORE's Changi Airport plans to develop an automated terminal that will deploy bots that will get to work from the minute an aircraft lands to serve passengers through to the baggage collection point. Inaugurated last October, the airport's Terminal 4 is going to act as an experimental facility for automation technologies. The idea is to replicate the established automation used in Terminal 5, a much bigger facility currently under construction to cater to 50 million passengers annually, reported News18.com of New Delhi.
As part of the push towards automation, cameras and associated technology will be installed to detect and monitor any aircraft that is about to land. Passengers will disembark aircraft through a laser-guided aerobridge. In parallel, some automated vehicles will unload the baggage while others will deliver robot-packed meals and processing cargo.
Once the passengers are off the plane they will head to automated immigration turnstiles equipped with face-scan and thumbprint. Baggage bots will deliver the baggage to the carousel for passengers to collect. A driverless taxi can be boarded after exiting the area.
Essentially, the automated machines currently under development to make the entire idea a reality include a remote-controlled vehicle to transfer luggage from a plane to the baggage handling area, an autonomous electric vehicle to transport documents for air cargo and autonomous aerobridges that use lasers and cameras to align to the plane door.
